The employees received their awards at a recent GCN Forum luncheon in Washington:

David Allardyce, program manager for information technology capital planning and investment in the Office of the Chief Information Officer, for creating a discipline for systems planning at USDA.

Elizabeth Behal, management analyst in the Office of the CIO, for improving the department's records management program.

Jack Carlson, director of the Natural Resources Conservation Service's IT Center, for leading bureau efforts to improve use of geospatial data.

Anita Compton and Marilyn Miller, members of the Rural Development bureau's FASTeller Support Team, for creating a mainframe application to maintain single-family housing loan data.

Harlan Crouse, information systems security program manager at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, for developing a credible security program for the bureau.

Carol Henson, a Rural Development supervisory computer specialist, for leading the bureau's efforts to make its loan services available via the Web.

Rob Holmes, team leader for capital planning and investment management at the Forest Service, for developing documentation now in use throughout Agriculture for the Technology Investment Portfolio System.

Richard Kang and James Reid, team leaders for the Forest Service's Lotus Notes deployment, for overseeing the migration of 30,000 legacy e-mail users to the new messaging system.

Kevin Navratil, automated timber sales accounting project leader at the National IT Center, for his long work overseeing a system for managing the sale of forest products.

Andre Rosselot, computer specialist in the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, and Ruben Vaughn, chief of the Data Base Management Branch, for establishing data marts at USDA's National Finance Center in New Orleans.